Walking for God
It was an unusually cold day for the month of May. Spring had arrived
and everything was alive with color. But a cold front from the North
had
brought winter's chill back to Indiana. I sat with two friends in the
picture window of a quaint restaurant just off the corner of the town
square.
The food and the company were both especially good that day. As we
talked, my attention was drawn outside, across the street. There,
walking into town, was a man who appeared to be carrying all his
worldly
goods on his back.
He was carrying, a well-worn sign that read, "I will work for food." My
heart sank.
I brought him to the attention of my friends and noticed that
others around us had stopped eating to focus on him. Heads moved in a
mixture of sadness and disbelief. We continued with our meal, but his
image lingered in my mind.
We finished our meal and went our separate ways. I had errands to
do and quickly set out to accomplish them. I glanced toward the town
square, looking somewhat halfheartedly for the strange visitor. I was
fearful, knowing that seeing him again would call some response. I
drove
through town and saw nothing of him. I made some purchases at a store
and got back in my car.
Deep within me, the Spirit of God kept speaking
to me: "Don't go back to the office until you've at least driven once
more around the square."
And so, with some hesitancy, I headed back into town. As I turned
the square's third corner. I saw him. He was standing on the steps of
the storefront church,
going through his sack.
I stopped and looked, feeling both compelled to speak to him, yet
wanting to drive on. The empty parking space on the corner seemed to be
a sign from God: an invitation to park. I pulled in, got out and
approached the town's newest visitor.
"Looking for the pastor?" I asked.
"Not really," he replied, "just resting." "Have
you eaten today?"
"Oh, I ate something early this morning." "Would
you like to have lunch with me?" "Do you have some work I
could do for you?" "No work," I replied. "I commute here to work
from the city, but I would like to take you to lunch."
"Sure," he replied with a smile.
As he began to gather his things, I asked some surface
questions.
"Where you headed?"
"St. Louis."
"Where you from?"
"Oh, all over; mostly Florida."
"How long you been walking?"
"Fourteen years," came the reply.
I knew I had met someone unusual. We sat across from each other in
the same restaurant I had left earlier. His face was weathered slightly
beyond his 38 years. His eyes were dark yet clear, and he spoke with an
eloquence and articulation that was startling. He removed his jacket to
reveal a bright red T-shirt that said, "Jesus is The Never Ending
Story."
Then Daniel's story began to unfold. He had seen rough times early
in life. He'd made some wrong choices and reaped the consequences.
Fourteen years earlier, while backpacking across the country, he had
stopped on the beach in Daytona. He tried to hire on with some men who
were putting up a large tent and some equipment. A concert, he thought.
He was hired, but the tent would not house a concert but revival
services, and in those services he saw life more clearly. He gave his
life over to God.
"Nothing's been the same since," he said, "I felt the Lord telling
me to keep walking, and so I did, some 14 years now." "Ever
think of stopping?" I asked.
"Oh, once in a while, when it seems to get the best of me. But God
has
given
me this calling. I give out Bibles. That's what's in my sack. I work to
buy
food and Bibles, and I give them out when His Spirit leads." I sat
amazed. My homeless friend was not homeless. He was on a mission and
lived this way by choice. The question burned inside for a moment and
then I asked:
"What's it like?"
"What?"
"To walk into a town carrying all your things on your back and to
show your sign?"
"Oh, it was humiliating at first. People would stare and
make comments.
Once someone tossed a piece of half-eaten bread and made a gesture that
certainly didn't make me feel welcome.
But then it became humbling to realize that God was using me to touch
lives and change people's concepts of
other folk like me."
My concept was changing, too.
We finished our dessert and gathered his things. Just outside the
door, he paused. He turned to me and said, "Come ye blessed of my
Father
and inherit the kingdom I've prepared for you. For when I was hungry
you
gave me food, when I was thirsty you gave me drink, a stranger and you
took me in." I felt as if we were on holy ground. "Could you
use another Bible?" I asked. He said he preferred a certain
translation. It traveled well and was not
too
heavy. It was also his personal favorite. "I've read through it 14
times,"
he
said.
"I'm not sure we've got one of those, but let's stop by our
church and see."
I was able to find my new friend a Bible that would do well, and
he seemed very grateful.
"Where you headed from here?"
"Well, I found this little map on the back of this amusement
park coupon."
"Are you hoping to hire on there for a while?" "No, I
just figure I should go there. I figure someone under that star right
there needs a Bible, so that's where I'm going next." He smiled, and
the
warmth of his spirit radiated the sincerity of his mission.
I drove him back to the town square where we'd met two hours
earlier, and as we drove, it started raining. We parked and unloaded
his
things.
"Would you sign my autograph book?" he asked. "I like to keep
messages from folks I meet."
I wrote in his little book that his commitment to his calling had
touched my life. I encouraged him to stay strong. And I left him with a
verse of scripture from Jeremiah, "I know the plans I have for you,"
declared the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to
give you a future and a hope."
"Thanks, man," he said. "I know we just met and we're really just
strangers, but I love you."
"I know," I said, "I love you, too." "The Lord
is good."
"Yes, He is. How long has it been since someone hugged you?"
I asked.
"A long time," he replied.
And so on the busy street corner in the drizzling rain, my new
friend and I embraced, and I felt deep inside that I had been changed.
He put his things on his back, smiled his winning smile and said, "See
you in the New Jerusalem."
"I'll be there!" was my reply.
He began his journey again. He headed away with his sign dangling
from his bed roll and pack of Bibles. He stopped, turned and said,
"When
you see something that makes you think of me, will you pray for me?"
"You bet," I shouted back,
"God bless."
"God bless."
And that was the last I saw of him.
Late that evening as I left my office, the wind blew strong. The
cold front had settled hard upon the town. I bundled up and hurried to
my car. As I sat back and reached for the emergency brake, I saw
them.... A pair of well-worn brown work gloves neatly laid over the
length of the handle. I picked them up and thought of my friend and
wondered if his hands would stay warm that night without them. I
remembered his words: "If you see something that makes you think of me,
will you pray for me?"
Today his gloves lie on my desk in my office. They help me to see
the world and its people in a new way, and they help me remember those
two hours with my unique friend and to pray for his ministry. "See you
in the New Jerusalem," he said.
Yes, Daniel, I know I will...
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